The first blasts of rock in Brno's Žabovřeská Street will begin on Monday afternoon

Brno – The first blasts of the rock mass under Wilson's forest for the construction of the tram tunnel in Brno's Žabovřeská Street will begin on Monday afternoon. Traffic will be diverted via a newly constructed temporary road that runs around the construction site near the Kamenomlýnský bridge and will be in operation from Monday morning. So far, it will not be necessary to significantly limit traffic during the blasting work, said Lucie Trubelíková, spokesperson for the Road and Motorway Directorate today in a press release. The creation of the tunnel is an important part of the second phase of the construction of the large city ring road.

During the preparation, blasting, and subsequent safety checks, road I/42 will be closed to traffic. "We anticipate that the rock blasts in Žabovřeská, whose execution will require a complete closure of road I/42 due to the impact zone, will take place in June. We will inform drivers and residents of the affected area in advance about the exact date. The actual blasting process will take us about an hour. The individual blasts will not be random, but will occur at precisely established time intervals. We expect to complete the blasting in December,” said David Fiala, director of the Brno Division of the Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic.

On weekdays, the intervals will be between 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. On weekends, due to lower traffic intensity, three time intervals are planned: morning from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM, afternoon from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, and early evening from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. According to the original plan, the blasts were supposed to begin as early as the beginning of March. However, the rock mass is being effectively separated using heavy machinery.

In the first stage of the construction of the large city ring in Žabovřeská, finishing works are still ongoing, including the installation of public lighting on the branches of the footbridge, completion of pedestrian paths, and vegetation planting. "In April, workers built exits from the construction site and entrances directly from Žabovřeská Street. Thanks to this, we anticipate that after the completion of work on the first phase of the project, which we expect to be no later than June, traffic in Bráfova Street will decrease,” said Mayor Markéta Vaňková (ODS).

The relocation of the tram line will allow the road to be expanded to a four-lane configuration, thus eliminating the bottleneck that reduces the flow and safety of traffic. The completion of the large city ring in Žabovřeská Street will last until around the middle of 2024. The costs amount to 2.03 billion crowns. The contractor is a consortium of companies Eurovia, Hochtief, and Subterra.